Pat Streeter, Vice President of Park Plaza Cooperative, provides experienced insight into the benefits of becoming a resident owned community. Park Plaza became resident-owned in 2011 and has since completed over $1 million in infrastructure improvements including a complete overhaul of the community’s water and storm sewer systems.

This Development Studies seminar titled "Transformative Politics and the Solidarity Economy" was given by Professor Michelle Williams and Dr Vishwas Satgar (School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) on 2 February 2016 at SOAS University of London.

[Editor's note: While Boulder, CO is home to a variety of housing cooperatives and co-housing communities, it is currently officially illegal for more than 3 unrelated people to share one home. The Boulder City Council will vote this coming Tuesday, December 6th, on whether or not to officially make housing coopertives legal. Below are two videos from the Boulder Community Housing Association on the many benefits that shared housing provides to its members and to the larger environment.]

The cooperative business and community model is both older than you think, and probably not what you think. Cooperatives have a history, especially in Buffalo, NY, and in minority communities everywhere. Clinton Parker explains how co-ops really work, how they can help some modern problems, and how you can get involved.

[Editor's note: The Raise-Op housing cooperative is an organization in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine, that offers democratically controlled housing to its members and organizes residents to build equity for themselves and the greater community. The video below was created for a crowd-funding campaign the co-op ran at the end of 2015. In January of 2016, Raise-Op announced that they had raised 112% of their on-line fundraising goal! You can learn more about Raise-Op and find out how to get involved on their website.

The commons offers a framework and a process for effectively and equitably stewarding the resources communities need to live in dignity. If we have a collective right to a resource, we should be able to participate in decisions about that resource’s use.

More people are choosing the cooperative model to express their entrepreneurial spirit in the Northwest. The success of a co-op depends on many people and their efforts. Keywords: resident-owned communities, manufactured homes, worker coops